Sample Cases of Reparations

In many cases, reparations is a frame of justice that benefits the oppressor by setting a price to
buy silence, erasing the past, or failing to reach the people most impacted by a violation.
However, reparations can also benefit victims of violations by offering a forum for truth and
reconciliation, compensation for loss, and sometimes restorative models of justice that account
for collectivity, interdependence, and the value of memory.

Here are a few examples of reparations being paid other than for military losses:

Africa and the Global Slave Trade: Reparations for slavery is based on a call for compensation
to be paid to the descendants of those who have been enslaved by the Atlantic Slave Trade. In
1999, the African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission called for “the West”
to pay $777 trillion to Africa within five years.  In 2004, Lloyds of London was sued by the
descendants of African slaves. The case was not successful.

Britain to planters: A total of £10m went to slave-owning families in the Caribbean and Africa,
while the other half went to absentee owners living in Britain. The biggest single payout went to
James Blair (no relation to Orwell), an MP who had homes in Marylebone, central London, and
Scotland. He was awarded £83,530, the equivalent of £65m today, for 1,598 slaves he owned on
the plantation he had inherited in British Guyana. The British government paid out £20m to
compensate some 3,000 families that owned slaves for the loss of their "property" when slave-
ownership was abolished in Britain's colonies in 1833. 

Germany to Jews: The German government has committed to pay nearly 800 million euros for
the care of elderly Holocaust survivors as a result of negotiations in Israel between Berlin and a
fund for Jewish victims of Nazi aggression. Nearly 60,000 people will benefit from the aid
money.

Haiti: In 1825, barely two decades after winning its independence against all odds, Haiti was
forced to begin paying enormous “reparations” (21 billion) to the French slaveholders it had
overthrown. Those payments would have been a staggering burden for any fledgling nation, but
Haiti wasn’t just any fledgling nation; it was a republic formed and led by blacks who’d risen up
against the institution of slavery. As such, Haiti’s independence was viewed as a threat by all
slave-owning countries – the United States included – and its very existence rankled racist
sensibilities globally. Thus Haiti – tiny, impoverished and all alone in a hostile world – had little
choice but to accede to France’s reparation demands, which were delivered to Port-au-Prince by
a fleet of heavily armed warships in 1825.

By complying with an ultimatum that amounted to extortion, Haiti gained immunity from French
military invasion, relief from political and economic isolation – and a crippling debt that took
122 years to pay off. 

Canada: In 1991, the Canadian government established the Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Peoples (RCAP) to investigate the state of Canada’s removal of indigenous Canadian children
from their families and placement in church-run Indian Residential Schools (IRS) in an effort to
homogenize Canadian society. As a result of the commission’s recommendations, the
government issued a symbolic apology in a “Statement of Reconciliation,” admitting that the
schools were designed on racist models of assimilation. In addition, the government provided a
$350 million fund for those affected by the schools. In 2006, the federal government signed the
Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, agreeing to provide reparations to the
survivors of this program. The Settlement totals $2 billion, and includes financial compensation,
a truth commission, and support services.

Chile: In 1990, president Patricio Aylwin created the National Truth and Reconciliation
Commission to investigate the human rights abuses of the 1973-1990 regime of General Augusto
Pinochet. The commission resulted in the 1991 Rettig Report, which documented
disappearances, political executions, and torture. The National Corporation for Reparations and
Reconciliation then recommended reparations for the victims, including: monthly pensions,
educational benefits for the children of the disappeared, exemption from military service, and
priority access to health services. These initiatives have been criticized for protecting the
identities of perpetrators and failing to recognize all victims to whom reparations are owed.

Morocco: From the 1960s and 1990s, the “years of lead,” massive human rights violations were
carried out in the government’s campaign of political oppression:  executions, torture, and the
annihilation of other civil liberties. King Mohammed VI formed the Independent Arbitration
Commission (IAC) to compensate victims of forced disappearances and arbitrary detention. The
IAC saw about 5,000 cases and awarded a total of $100 million. Victims and their families
complained of a lack of transparency in the tribunal’s procedures and demanded truth-seeking
measures in addition to financial compensation. Thus, in 2004, an official truth-seeking
initiative, the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER) was formed. The IER issued a
reparations policy considered ground-breaking for upholding gender equity. It resulted in
roughly $85 million, paid to almost 10,000 people. The IER’s recommendations also led to
a collective reparations program that blended the symbolic recognition of human rights violations
with a development program in 11 regions of Morocco that had suffered from collective
punishment. As of May 2010, implementation of the collective reparations program was
ongoing.

Other reparations programs have been proposed and/or implemented in: Argentina, Brazil,
Cambodia, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, El Salvador, Germany,
Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Malawi, Liberia, South Africa, Kenya, the United States, and
others. 

Guyana: In 2007, Guyana called for European nations to pay reparations for the slave trade,
with no success. In 2013, in the first of a series of lectures in Georgetown, Guyana, to
commemorate the 250th anniversary of the 1763 Berbice Slave Revolt, the principal of
University of the West Indies, Sir Beckles, urged Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries
to emulate the position adopted by the Jews who were prosecuted during WWII and organize for
pursuit of a reparations fund.
In 2011, Antigua and Barbuda called for reparations at the United Nations, claiming “that
segregation and violence against people of African descent had impaired their capacity for
advancement as nations, communities and individuals.”

Barbados: In 2012, the government of Barbados established a Reparations Task Force

responsible for sustaining the local, regional and international momentum for
reparations.Barbados is reportedly “currently leading the way in calling for reparations from
former colonial powers for the injustices suffered by slaves and their families.”

Jamaica: In 2004, a coalition of Rastafari groups argued that European countries formerly
involved in the slave trade, especially Britain, should pay 72.5 billion pounds sterling to resettle
500,000 Jamaican Rastafarians in Africa. The claim was rejected by the British government,
which said it could not be held accountable for wrongs in past centuries.In 2012, Jamaica revived
its reparations commission, to consider the question of whether the country should seek an
apology or reparations from Britain for its role in the slave trade.